Fear

Indoctrination

Punishment and Fatalism

Vaporisation is a them that remains prevalent throughout '1984'. Vaporisation is what occurs as a result of 'thoughtcrime' or being a 'thought criminal' or simply just committing any crimes that go against the ideologies of this totalitarian state. - Once you are vaporised, your existence is wiped from reality completely. People who are vaporised become an 'unperson', this happens to Mr Parsons, Syme, and Comrade Withers. This is also Winston and Julia's fate, but they must be indoctrinated within Room 101, so they are completely subservient to the Party's ideologies before they are vaporised.

Book 1 Chapter 2 - We are introduced to Mrs Parsons and her children. Within this dystopian reality, 'nearly all children were horrible', as were the Parsons' children. They had 'toy automatic pistols', a way of conditioning and indoctrinating children to use weapons in order to desensitise them. Their 'ferocity was turned outwards towards the state'. They were 'Spies', a part of the Youth League who were 'systematically turned into ungovernable little savages'. - The children were already desensitised at their young age; they 'want[ed] to see the hanging!'

In '1984', the Junior Anti-Sex League is a Party organisation which is dedicated to working for and replacing sex with artificial insemination. - The Junior Anti-Sex League promotes celibacy for both females and males.
This was a way of indoctrinating children into believing that sex and sexual relationships were wrong. - A direct result of this prevents freedom and autonomy, which is good for the Party as it prevents rebellion.

CONTEXT:The Hitler Youth - (4 July 1926 - 10 October 1945)
Was represented by the Parsons' children. The Hitler Youth consisted of 7.7 million members, and enrolment was mandatory.
It comprised of the complete indoctrination of children to follow their ideologies.

CONTEXT: The Komsomols - (29 October 1918 - 28 September 1991). The Komsomols was an organization for young people aged 14 to 28 that was primarily a political organ for spreading Communist teachings and preparing future members of the Communist Party. the encouragement of these children occurred through persuasion. If they joined the group then they were automatically admitted into university, therefore there was tremendous amounts of pressure.

Indoctrination within 1984 causes there to be a lack of autonomy throughout Airstrip One. This is when in Chapter 7, Winston states that 'If there is hope, it lies in the proles'. The proles are the working class of Oceania. The word prole is a shortened variant of proletarian, which is a Marxist term for a working-class citizen. The proles were only allowed to read , listen to certain music, and watch certain movies, they even had access to pornography, so it is evident they weren't controlled like the Inner and Outer members of the Party; they still had their thoughts and feelings intact, essentially they were free, but needed to awaken from their dormant state.

CONTEXTUAL LINKS: More recently, in North Korea, if people were caught listening to foreign broadcasts they would face harsh punishments. North Korea is a 'modern' and a real example for a highly centralised totalitarian state. - Complete autonomy and freedom evidently does not exist in North Korea.

Another key theme of '1984' is Fatalism. - Fatalism is the idea that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable. Fatalism in '1984' is illustrated through crime. Once you commit a crime, your fate has been sealed. This can be as minor and as secretive to be intrinsic, a crime that is within your head, only the thought of rebellion is enough to get you vaporised, these crimes manage to unveil themselves and manifest themselves within reality.

Chapter 8 - 'When once you have succumbed to thoughtcrime, it was certain that by a given date you would be dead' - Winston conveys the idea of fatalism in its bleakest form.

Media Manipulation/Censorship

'DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER'

“The Youth League who surrounded the courts from morning to night, chanting at intervals ‘Death to the traitors!'” - Book 2, Chapter 5

“In reality there was no escape.” - Book 2, Chapter 5

“The new tune which was to be the theme-song of Hate Week (the hate song it was called) had already been composed and was being endlessly plugged on the telescreen.” - Book 2, Chapter 5

CONTEXT: Military parades linking to the Nuremburg Rallies.
Goebbels was in charge of arranging and displaying propaganda around Nazi Germany e.g Posters. Patriotic music used by Soviets and Nazi Party in order to incite support for their regimes

“By sharing a small act of thoughtcrime he had turned the two of them into accomplices.” - Book 2, Chapter 6, pg.182

“He had the sensation of stepping into the dampness of a grave, and it was not much better because he had always known that the grave was there and waiting for him” - Book 2, Chapter 6 p184

Rebellion

“The first step has been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions” - Book 2, Chapter 6 - pg. 184 - This quote illustrating how Winston's fatalism has manifested and how it will occur and how this will lead to his vaporisation. - The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted that the end was contained in the beginning'. - The reinforcement of the theme of fatalism. Room 101 is in the Ministry of Love, foreshadowing his own torture through the use of fatalism

“Some of the new developments are most ingenious. The reduction in the number of verbs” - Book 2, Chapter 6 - p182 - This connotes the reduction of the language, 'Newspeak' in order to prevent Rebellion, Autonomy and Freedom. By reducing the language, it reduces individual thought, preventing there to be thought criminals, preventing anyone from thinking about rebellion and their own freedom.

CONTEXT: In 1984, the idea of torture and punishment methods create direct inferences to Stalin and the savage murder/ assassination of his party members. – Upon Stalin’s rise to power, some members of the former Bolshevik party began to question his authority. By the mid-1930s, Stalin believed anyone with ties to the Bolsheviks or Lenin’s government was a threat to his leadership and needed to go. – The Great Purge.

‘it was perfectly possible that she had merely been sent to a forced labour camp’. – Book 2, Chapter 7, pg. 189 – Winston talks about his mother. - This quote has links to Hitler’s reign and Nazi Germany, where there were concentration camps for those who opposed Hitler and those who were not Aryan.

‘When once they get hold of us, there will be nothing, literally nothing, that either of us can do for the other.’ – p192 – Fatalist mindset at they’re aware that they will be vaporised. It is just a matter of when.

‘Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden…. they could be squeezed out of you by torture’. – p192 - Book 2, Chapter 7

‘But if the objective was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make.’ Book 2, Chapter 7 – p193 – The quote meaning that, to be truly alive is to have your humanity, the Party could kill you but if that idea did not affect them, then stripping them of their humanity and indoctrinating them first is what they would do. - Foreshadows the torturing of Winston in Room 101 by O'Brien.

In Orwell’s ‘1984’, the infamous quote ‘War is Peace’ is extremely significant as it conveys the idea that for the inhabitants of Airstrip One to be subservient, they must be aware that war is constant. Furthermore, as the inhabitants have been desensitized, they can live with war being ‘at peace’ with it, which distracting them and preventing them from ‘awakening’.
The party enforce the slogan, “War is Peace”, through methods of persuasion like that of Hate Week rallies that encourage civilians to adopt the Party’s ideology, which can be notably deemed as their ‘truth’.

“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour” - Book 2, Chapter 9, pg. 220
“War becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous” - Book 2, Chapter 9, pg. 227. This slogan is paramount in creating a constant atmosphere of fear that is felt throughout Oceania, with a looming idea of punishment being invoked if they defy the Party’s ‘truth’. It ensures that civilians don’t disobey the Party’s strict totalitarian regime.

“The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the middle is to change places with the high. The aim of the low, when they have an aim […] is to abolish distinctions and create a society in which all men will be equal.” – Book 2, Chapter 9, pg. 231

“Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.” - Book 2, Chapter 9 P240

“Inequality was the price of civilisation.” - Book 2, Chapter 9 pg.233

CONTEXTUAL LINKS: Stalin’s Collectivism (Stalin’s First Five Year Plan)
Political propaganda (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia)

‘You do not exist’ – Book 3, Chapter 2, pg. 296 – the Party has the ability to make anyone who was once a citizen of Oceania ‘non-existent’, all details of their existence will be vaporised, and life will continue normally without them.

‘For seven years I have watched over you […] I shall save you, I shall make you perfect.’ – Book 3, Chapter 2, pg. 280 – They first interacted 7 years ago, when O’Brien spoke to Winston ‘We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness’, connoting to Winston’s entrapment in Room 101. - Foreshadowing
‘I told you, that if we ever met again it would be here’. - Winston was given a completely false sense of rebellion.

CRITICAL INTERPRETATION - 'His rebellion is ultimately false [...] because it is likely that the Party gave him the tools and motivation to act.' - Kristoffer Rissanen (2014) - 'Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Ideology of Hate'

‘He was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was the inquisitor, he was the friend’ Book 3, Chapter 2 – pg280 – Though Winston has been betrayed and has been tortured brutally, because O’Brien has the drug which eases his pain, he still befriends him to an extent.

CONTEXTUAL LINKS - The Gulag – A system of forced labour camps made in soviet Russia by Stalin. - Operated from the 1920s until shortly after Stalin's death in 1953.

During the ensuing Great Terror, which included the notorious show trials of Stalin's former Bolshevik opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of innocent Soviet citizens were sent off to labour camps or killed in prison. By the time the terror subsided in 1939, Stalin had managed to bring both the party and the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer necessary.

CRITICAL INTERPRETATION - "The Party isolates every individual, destroying all social bonds" - Kristoffer Rissanen

Contextual Links

"The primary function of the media here is to terrorize its citizens" - Douglas Kellner

"He was a weak creature born to be victimised" - John Atkins

Winston is "passive and not self-aware" - Brandon Johnson

"The large mass of common people does not find in themselves the need to think independently" - Bossche

“‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.’”
Syme explains the political goals of Newspeak to Winston. According to Syme, eliminating traditional words from the English language and replacing them with Party-approved concepts will rob English speakers of the ability to express concepts that counter the Party’s ideology. The influence of language on people’s ability to think is one of the book’s most enduring themes.

“‘We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us. . . . We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him.’”
Inside the Ministry of Love, O’Brien explains to Winston that the ultimate goal of the Party’s punishments is to regain control over thought-criminals by changing their psychology and manipulating them into giving up their resistance. This speech emphasizes how thoroughly the Party wants to gain control over people’s thoughts and signals to Winston that O’Brien won’t be satisfied with false confessions.

The telescreens are not on all the time so that the citizens of Oceania can stay informed but rather so that Party members can monitor people’s behavior. While it seems unlikely that someone is paying close attention to every single person’s activity at every single moment, the possibility always exists, and so everyone must act according to the Party’s rules. This way, even if no one is watching the telescreen from the other side, the presence of the telescreens ensures that no one will act against the Party.

'The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.'

MODERN DAY CHINA - Approximately 3 million Uyghurs and other Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, have been detained since April 2017, according to experts and government officials. The re-education camps are places of brainwashing, torture and punishment that hark back to the darkest hours of the Mao-era, when anyone suspected of not being loyal enough to the state or the Chinese Communist Party could end up in China's notorious labour camps.

Major contributing factors to the famine include the forced collectivization of agriculture as a part of the Soviet first five-year plan, forced grain procurement, combined with rapid industrialisation, a decreasing agricultural workforce, and several bad droughts.

'The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.'

“Pain is not always enough. There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something unendurable.” (B3C5)

“In this room, I’m going to be a woman, not a party comrade.” (B2C4)

“You will be annihilated in the past as well as the future. You will have never existed.” (B3C2)